What a real leader sounds like…what she said!
The “New Jim Crow” and mass incarceration of black men has been the “normal” for decades, thanks in large part to Bill Clinton. The criminalization, torture, and killing of black men with impunity by white police officers has also been the “normal” for as long as this country has existed. What we need IS a new normal where Black Live Matter.
She seems like a nice lady but if the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting didn’t move people to take actions on ammosexual shootings – nothing will.
That is demonstrably false.
Clinton was President from '93 to 2000. In fact, incarceration generally, and incarceration of black Americans specifically, leveled off during and after Clinton’s presidency.
But hey, don’t let the data get in the way of your (false) narrative.
"When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.”
I wonder what Bill Clinton has to say about it? Oh, there’s this:
“Yesterday, the president (Obama) spoke a long time and very well on criminal justice reform,” the former president (Clinton) said. “But I want to say a few words about it. Because I signed a bill that made the problem worse and I want to admit it.
I don’t advocate violence. I admire Attorney General Lynch. I agree with her. It was the proper, responsible thing to say, and I will follow her advice.
Republicans have played with insurrection for decades, with threats of violence against innocent citizens, with calls for armed action against our President (even today), with plans for secession from the union, with suggestions of Second Amendment remedies following elections, with support for the Confederate battle flag, all the while winking at middle America that it’s just a verbal game, one which charges up their base of voters. The thing is their base of voters don’t recognize it as such. They’ve proven it time and again, in the bombing in Oklahoma City, in Oregon, Nevada, Mississippi and Alabama.
The decades-long politics of aggression being practiced by Republicans has led to a candidate who practices it openly, boasting of his skill with it. We are left with a country that is gerrymandered to prevent representation, with voting rights dissolving into day-long waits in line in order to thwart the will of the people, with legislative obstruction to actions supported by 90% of the population, with a news media that purports to balance national discussion with a censored conservative-only perspective, with budgets that send vast sums of our money to foreign governments in undeclared wars, with an opposition leadership expressing admiration for totalitarian dictators, with a tax structure designed to add to the wealth of the rich, with a crumbling education system, with a college system driving our children into life-long debt, with stalled housing values, with endless robo-begging from politicians, with a banking system that will not lend, with payday lenders, with gun rights for terrorists, with reproductive lies forced upon female patients, with a minimum wage that gives no buying power, with poisoned water, with over-priced medicine, with open denial of unarguable scientific fact, and a Congress fundamentally inept, unable to address the simplest of national issues, the duty to appoint judges.
Thomas Jefferson wrote about a condition like this.
All consistent with incarceration rates skyrocketing before Clinton took office, then leveling off during his term.
Both of which are exactly what happened — as the National Academy of Sciences study shows.
You’re not very good at that whole cause/effect thing, are you?
Bil Clinton was wrong about that — the '94 omnibus crime bill (which, by the way, Bernie Sanders voted YEA on) — did not have any detectable effect on incarceration rates.
If you disagree, don’t post snippets of text (especially ones that use cherry-picked numbers). Show the actual fucking time series data, or go home.
From the National Academies of Science report:
http://www.motherjones.com/files/blog_black_incarceration_crime_bill.jpg
Again: note that Clinton was President from '93 to 2000.
At least 70% of the increase in incarceration rates had already occurred by the time Clinton was inaugurated in January of 1993.
The Omnibus Crime Bill took effect in 1994, and would have taken a couple of years to show detectable effects on the overall rate of incarceration. That did NOT happen. By the time Clinton left office, incarceration rates were leveling off — not increasing.
Here’s the link to the NAS report. Knock yourself out, kiddo.
“Do not let this week precipitate a new normal?”
The only thing “new” about it is that someone of color decided that they too can defend their liberty from a tyrannical government. A demented murderer to be sure – a vile terrorist by any description – but hardly new. This has been the battle cry of the white supremacist race-war-baiting gun fetishists all along. Only by fortuitous circumstance did the Bundy contingent not kill themselves a whole bunch of cops.
And what’s new about black men being killed by police for no apparent reason? Happens all the time. What’s new about gun violence in general? Nothing. These things are all our normal.
It’s about goddamned time something did precipitate a new normal – not in kind, but a new normal in which cops become accountable for policing the racism within their own ranks. We need a new normal where no one should be afraid that if they get stopped they might not make it home that night. A new normal in which that the ready availability of weapons designed for the specific purpose of killing as many people in as little time as possible has been curbed.
Sandy Hook didn’t do it. Charleston didn’t do it. In point of fact, the extant normal hasn’t precipitated a goddamned thing. So I for one want these tragedies to precipitate a genuinely new normal, not a line of platitudinous bullshit that this situation might mark the beginning of some new trend. It doesn’t.
If all lives truly mattered, the Black Lives Matter movement would be pointless. But for that to happen, we as white folks have got to make all lives matter, not just say it like some meaningless and patently obvious cliche, because far too many of us are implicitly or explicitly endorsing the diminution of black lives. That’s not a new normal either.
What a thoughtful speech! Kudos.
This is what scares the conservatives. That is why Paul Ryan impeached Eric Holder and conservatives are trying to impugn attorney general Lynch with false bribery accusations.
Look at your own data. The exponential rise in black incarceration rates started leveling out and falling only AFTER Clinton left office in 2001. Couple his crime bill with his welfare “reform” bill, and it is easy to see the immeasurable harm that Clinton did to the African American community.
Furthermore, according to your data, it still has only fallen slightly and remains at close to record levels, higher than when Clinton took office.
Of course, this is not surprising from a white Southern Governor who told Ted Kennedy that “A few years ago, this guy [Obama] would have been getting us coffee.”
There are several pre-disposing factors that created the anger and frustration that contributed to the killings of 5 people in Dallas.
First, police across the board have lost credibility because they are involved in parasitic traffic stops, numerous extrajudicial killings and have resorted to using tanks, robot bombs and military hardware. It has been apparent that nearly all of these killings are African Americans. Indeed the racial pattern in extrajudicial police killings has been painfully obvious. The rogue and rambo police officers involved in extrajudicial killings are making the work environment unsafe for other well trained, law abiding officers. Dallas is an example of that.
Second, the judiciary has failed American communities. The tight collaborative nexus between police, prosecutors, judges and prison companies in our system means that rogue and rambo police involved in extrajudicial killings are invariably exonerated and not held accountable after their trials. There is widespread concern these trials are a sham and their outcomes might be rigged regardless of the amount of video evidence. This has completely undermined trust in the judiciary as a fair venue to seek justice. Many communities feel helpless and angry as a result.
Finally, police are recruiting conservative, right wing religious extremists like Joe Walsh, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh to attack and discredit African American and other civil rights organizations who try to hold police accountable. The conservative politicians in turn are trying to redirect the racial anger among religious and social conservatives toward President Obama toward hatred of all African Americans for political gain. The police will lose more respect if they pander to conservatives like Ryan, Limbaugh, Walsh and Trump. Respect has to earned not forced.
I challenge law enforcement departments everywhere in America to take on the challenge of not having any deaths for an entire decade. I mean All Lives. All lives do matter and deserve respect. BLM would not be needed if this were to happen in the police departments and the judiciary.
The rise is nearly linear. Not exponential. That tells us that you don’t know what “exponential” means.
Moreover, the rate of change does not alter in Clinton’s first years in office. That is strong evidence that whatever trends were driving the increase in incarceration, they were independent of whatever Clinton did or did not do.
The major drivers of increased incarceration were probably stricter drug laws (mainly at the state level, and mainly passed prior to Clinton’s inauguration), and the introduction (and then, the removal) of lead from gasoline.
You’ve confirmed yourself to be innumerate. (Alternatively, and less charitably, you might be a liar or — even worse — a bullshitter). I lack the information needed to determine which of these hypotheses is more likely to be correct.
Attorney Lynch tell that to the side that needs to hear it, and act accordingly. Black people have the proverbial last nerve and it’s being worked.
“The Exponential Growth Of American Incarceration, In Three Graphs:”
Lead in gasoline may be responsible for the rise and fall of violent crimes, but not the war on drugs and the disproportionate number of blacks incarcerated for drug crimes (or any crimes).
Finally, you simply cannot make a post or have a discussion without calling names or personal attacks, can you? Hint: It adds nothing to the discussion, and it only reveals the type of person you are, and nothing about the posters that you attack.
I agree. I’ve always favored sensible gun laws, but Sandy Hook was the last straw for me. I’m at the point now where I feel more cynicism than sorrow whenever there’s a shooting, and I don’t like this about myself. I don’t want to be bitter or unfeeling. But I’m so tired of hurting every time our legislators refuse to use common sense regarding guns. I’m tired of hoping that maybe “this time” we’ll move forward, only to be disillusioned when we either stand still or move backwards. So, I shield myself with cynicism and ratchet down feelings of anger and sorrow with regard to gun violence. I don’t like it, but it’s the only way I can cope with my feelings of helplessness at the moment.
The fact that other innumerates use the word “exponential” incorrectly only means that you would willingly place yourself in the company of other innumerates.
And all of those graphs support the position that anything Bill Clinton might have done in his eight years in office had nothing to do with overall incarceration rates at either the state or federal levels.
Holy shit, you’re an idiot.
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Do the curve fit for incarceration rate starting from back in 1960 to 2000, and you’ll see a high correlation coefficient to an exponential curve than a line. Not perfect, but close. Anyone can see that it is not a straight-line.
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Bill Clinton admits that he contributed today’s high incarcaration rates. Clinton served from January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001, by the way.
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The number of people incarcerated today is still much much higher than when Clinton took office, and still much higher than when his Crime Bill passed. So to argue that his bill has nothing to do with today’s high incarceration rates is absurd. And Clinton agrees with me, not you.
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Your level of discourse is more suitable for a middle-school playground bully than an educated adult. Done.